


Walled Off

by VanessaSQuest



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M, Non-Con between unsub and Reid.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 15:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanessaSQuest/pseuds/VanessaSQuest





	Walled Off

In the back of his mind, there was a feeling. The thrumming need, no it hadn't happened right away when he had realized what the unsub's father had done to her- but the pang in his chest came alive.

That unsub was as much of a victim as the women she had held hostage- no, maybe she wasn't even the hostage-taker. Her father was, she was merely using human surrogates for her dolls. Her friends.

Her number had been three. He looked at his revolver.

'There's only one bullet in that gun, boy...' And at that he let out a cold, long shiver. Reid was just as guilty of having surrogates. He had said it, he had told a homicidal maniac to go after a man he trusted, he loved- a man with a FAMILY, a fucking family... so easy to destroy it just to stay alive, just to hold on to those few more seconds of sanity where the gun wasn't at his head- the world stopped spinning...

He smiles and gives his fondest 'See you Monday' he can to each member of his team. He thinks about asking for a week off to see his mom, he'd code it to Hotch. Well, it wouldn't be much of a code, the man surely wouldn't try to decipher it.

He deduces that it would be strange to bring it up just after a round of ‘Monday! Yeah, looking forward to it, let’s do THIS again…’ so he says nothing, instead he’ll opt to call early Saturday to make the request. But first, first he knows he needs to get the drugs. Then he’ll make the plans.

Anything, anything to not feel this.

So Reid says his jovial goodbyes, Hotch’s eyes burning into the back of his skull. Had he paid attention to that, maybe he wouldn’t have made his attempt that night, then again he probably would have anyway. Desperation led to unusual bedfellows.

Take, for instance, a little old man who sat in front of his Pakistani deli despite how obvious he was Puerto Rican. His place was on the up and up even though he had little real merchandise and very few customers. He did, however, have renters in his basement that made his shrunken inventory more than worth his while.

Reid went to visit them.

Two of them were known dealers, the high-end kind in fact. Reid had read over the open investigations a long, long time ago when he came to the stark realization that he did not readily have a friend of a friend with a friend who could get him dilaudid.

He did have an internet connection that would not rouse suspicions if he checked for certain information though. And he had, he had read and he had learned and he had paid attention to those who were less on the radar and those who he should clearly avoid.

There was a knowing to it, an intuition when a big bust was coming- and Reid was certain that was not in time with the season. This dealer was safe. He’d be a forgotten junky long before the FBI ever breathed down his neck. So he went to pay a visit.

What Reid had learned through research and through experience was that sometimes- well sometimes research, despite it’s truths, meant nothing. A person who had nothing to fear from the FBI on paper might still hold all the fear in the world in his mind.

He found that out the hard way when, after he had requested some special inventory he was told was ‘kept in the basement’ he felt a hard wall meet his left temple three- four- he lost count after four times, but knew that, intuitively, there had been more introductions.

The rest had been… less pleasant. He felt his belt tug off then his pants drag midway down his thighs. His underwear was pulled tight as if they really thought they could give him a wedgy in boxers- a reason he had made the switch when he was 10.

They too were yanked lower, he had heard some sounds- crinkling- and then of all things the aerosol foaming of whipped cream being dispersed and felt something cold in him. His body was fast to warm it, his brain slower than molasses to process why that even should mean anything… these guys were assaulting him—

—And then he realized just how the planned to do just that.

He let out a scream when the first phallus shoved hard into him. Whatever it had been was clearly not a man’s erection though, because no man would willingly do that to himself. Soon he realized it was a beer bottle, half up the neck- and the ridges on the bottle cap as they moved up and down lubricated him more than whatever dessert foam they had previously used.

Blood coated his thighs and stained the high-waist seam of his pants. In the progression of twelve minutes, two men had defiled him, each seemed to go further up into him than what physics should have allowed for, and when they came, those mean spirited little bastards, tucked themselves away and then pulled him up out the rear alley, down three blocks, and tossed him in the trash in front of a gay club.

Beyond the utter humiliation, the cry for his own decency, Reid listened to the pang in his head over the pang in his nether-regions. He caved to sleep… really, he didn’t have to deal with this NOW.

That would have been what he thought, had he had the presence of mind TO think. As he laid there silently bleeding from two distinctive locations, his own mind traveled further away to yet another place.

He didn’t feel the shake of his shoulder, nor did he hear the scream- the panicked trill of his own last name- own FIRST name. Hell, if anyone asked what he honestly remembered from that night and he had inklings to answer, he wouldn’t be able to recount the cigarette burns, the nasty welts, or how anything got there after his head met the wall.

Instead he stared up, seven hours later, in stupor as he recognized that he was in a familiar house.

Sure, he vaguely recalled a hospital, stitches, nurses who were chatty, but he didn’t know why. He wasn’t particularly conversational… he smelled it though, that faint dowsing of after-shave, the dry-clean-only chemically clean… Then he feels the ice. Oh god he wished he could feel the morphine instead!

He squinted, it was harder to see than it should be… where were his contacts? He didn’t take them out last night, did he?

…No, no he supposed he wouldn’t have been able to.

“Spencer, just stay where you are. You’re safe now.”

Hotch. It’s a thought and it’s a sentence… not with prose or neat little linguistics, it’s his career’s death march.

His eyes go wide as he realized where he had to be, had he come here high?! Why would he do something so… so… stupid as to come HERE of all places?! Hadn’t his plan been to lie low and avoid the team for a week, claim he was in Vegas… get this shit out of his system then go back to NA with his tail between his legs?!

…If that were all true, he would think any drugs he’d purchased would be better than this shit… “Is this ice…?”

“…Well, with your uh… medication allergies, they were hard-pressed for other solutions.” Hotch offered.

He let out a wispy, “So my sobriety’s still intact…” Hotch apparently takes that the entirely wrong way.

“Of course I made sure they wouldn’t compromise that- you’ve worked so hard to…”

Reid turned away, he didn’t want to hear that, especially now.

“…Why am I here, Hotch?”

Hotch’s face stiffened, any emotion Reid might have been able to weed out had he been squinting was now gone with stoic lines and firm shields in place.

“Well where else would you expect me to bring you after I found you sexually assaulted.”

He could have sworn there was a, “Genius…” tacked on at the end, but that couldn’t be it.

Instead his brain volunteers the first thing he thinks of, “A hospital, a walk in clinic, an urgent care facility, a crisis center, my primary practitioner… my place…”

“You went to a hospital first, they ran a rape kit, you signed the release for it. Do you not remember that? No, of course you do- it’s… you really don’t, do you Reid?” The horror in Hotch’s face was muted by the blur of myopathy in Reid’s eye contours.

“Do you see where my contacts fell, Hotch? My satchel… I had my glasses in my satchel…” His hand reached for his side then stopped when he felt pain instead of his clothes, instead of his bag, instead of his vest… “Why am I wearing a t-shirt?” His voice suddenly grew dark. His hand went reflexively lower then froze.

His face fell, mouth open, eyes wide, he didn’t own wind-breaker pants so how the HELL was he wearing them now?! He started to sit up immediately, his hands searched for anything familiar- any form of what he had had when he got off the plane…

“Reid, Reid lay back down- you’re going to hurt yourself…” Hotch was at his side the moment Reid’s body caved. Somehow his brain had forgotten to tell him he had broken several ribs on his one side… as he gasped in air-hungry panic, Hotch pulled the ice lower.

“It’s not fucking helping! Just STOP!” Reid shivered, which wound up being uniquely painful across his chest. “Where the hell am I?! What the fuck HAPPENED?!”

“I’m calling an ambulance, Reid, we’ll go back to the hospital…”

“…Hospital? Why was I even THERE?!” He squeezed his eyes shut, “Damn it, where are my glasses, Hotch! I can’t even see…”

In retrospect, closing his eyes had been a bad idea. When he opened them he was in a glaringly ugly green-painted room with a very tacky border along the edge of the ceiling. They looked like they were either animals or geometric shapes, either way they were primary colors. At least his rods and cones still worked.

Then he felt heaven, hands gently brushed his temples at the same time and as they released just behind his ears, he could see Hotch leaning over him in perfect focus.

“You found my glasses…” Reid smiled meekly.

“I had them released from evidence. They didn’t have any relevant prints on them so…”

“Evidence…? Of what?”

“Spencer, I’m Dr. Walters, do you remember me?”

Reid turned to face the man in the room with him. “…I’m sorry, when did I meet you?”

“Spencer, you met him ten minutes ago.” Hotch said gently.

Reid let out a laugh, “That’s funny… really…”

“I’m a neurologist, Spencer. Can you tell me what day it is today?”

Reid rolled his eyes and only momentarily regretted it.

“It’s alright if you don’t, but I’d like to hear what happened to you today.”

“Well, as glad as I am for a friend, my work requires confidentiality, so I’m not going to be able to grant your request.”

“Spencer, what day is today.” Hotch’s tone told him to answer, it didn’t bother to ask.

“Friday.”

“…It isn’t. It’s Saturday, it’s 3PM on Saturday.”

For a moment, he wondered how much he wound up injecting into himself, he lost track of that much time? The highs were usually shorter than… he glanced down casually at his body. “I have bruises all over.”

His eyes widened, he knew he was feeling pain, but this wasn’t the right kind of pain for a car accident…

His expression muted, mouth closed, eyes closed slightly thinner than they would normally rest at.

“Look at me, Spencer.” Hotch ordered.

His eyebrows twitched, he had had a beer bottle half up his ass… and then two… He rolled toward the side of the exam table and emptied his stomach repeatedly. He felt a warm arm encircle him just where his ribs were left unhurt. How could that be?! Everything hurt… he let out a squeak in the back of his throat as his weight gave out. Aaron held him upright on the exam table as Dr. Walters pushed the table back into a strictly reclined position.

Lowered back into it, Spencer shook. He was a kind of cold he didn’t know his body could get. And then came the sense of shame. He had gone in there. Willingly. He had gone in there WILLINGLY. He had stupidly walked inside a dirty, questionable place where scruples were less heard of than scabies…

He willed himself to roll off the table, his feet caught his weight as he threw it at the ground. Aaron had him by the shirt, and he was sure that’s why he was still upright as he started to run. It really looked more like a hap-hazardous dance into the wall where Hotch guided him to ease him down into a chair.

“Spencer, sit.”

He couldn’t though, it hurt far more than he really understood, so instead he leaned on his right hip, his left leg protectively curled to cover his front.

“As I was discussing, Mr. Hotchner, the trauma of the incident will show through eventually… this is more of a mental block than a physical cause. He doesn’t have a concussion, he was badly hit in the head to subdue him—that part is evident, but medically, this is neurological shock, not physiological symptoms. I wish you would reconsider the prescriptions for sedatives.”

“I’m not drugging him. Not until he tells me he wants them, and then I’m especially not.”

“There really isn’t much more I can do for you.”

“Thank you, doctor. Spencer, let me take you back to my place. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

“…Why your place? Why not mine…? It isn’t natural to try to take me from my own comfort space unless…”

“Spencer, right now I know this is a lot to take in, I know you’re out of your depth of what you CAN take in, and I don’t want you to affiliate anything from your life, from your world in a way that is going to somehow sully that for you when this fully sinks in. My house has a guest suite that’s on the ground floor, and I can protect you there. The men responsible for this don’t know my address… they… may know yours, but we have a unit keeping an eye on it just in case. As soon as you think you’re up to it, we can do an interview, it doesn’t have to be today. It’s okay if it takes longer.”

“…Wait, wait you haven’t caught them?”

“We don’t even know how many there were, Reid… they’re processing the evidence, but from what there is, it’s something that requires testimony.”

“No.” Reid abruptly attempted to stand again.

“Spencer…?”

“NO. I’m burying this, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, this isn’t real, I… I must have fallen off a bike or… or…” His eyes rolled left, he didn’t ride bikes, that wouldn’t be a good cover story, “I… was hit by a car, that… that’s believable… the others, no one has to know this happened, Hotch. No one, we can just make this disappear… Take out… the trash… like it was never there…”

His arms went limp to his side. He heard them, talking about him… he was a fed- they somehow knew he was a fed or at least expected he was one… his career was going to be over in a heart-beat, so it explained why his chest hurt so much.

“You are NOT trash, you are Dr. Spencer Reid a VITAL member to my team, to the BAU, now Spencer- look at me.”

He did, he didn’t dare defy the order.

“You are not trash. The bastards who did this to you, god Reid, I wish I had… I should have pulled you aside right after the case… I’m sorry for that. I knew you were hurting, but… I didn’t realize how much.”

Reid looked down, “…What are you implying, Hotch?”

“I’m not. You know I can’t. You also know I’m too good of a profiler not to know exactly what you think I know.”

He tried to push away, his own sense of guilt at feeling so exposed- worse, like he had deserved this… He turned only to realize they hadn’t even been having this conversation at the doctor’s office, they were again back at Aaron’s home, had been well into the evening.

“Spencer, you’re going to go into the bathroom and you aren’t going to lock the door. I want you to take a bath, not a shower, I don’t want you to fall and I don’t think you can stand up long enough not to. In five minutes I’m going to come in there with towels and some pajamas, they’ll be a bit big. I already took all of the razors and mirrors out of there but you’re a genius. I know you could come up with things to do to yourself, I just ask you don’t do them to yourself.”

“Aaron…” The name whispered was small, unlike the man before him as he spoke it, his own hand hovered in the air, it rested on Hotch’s sleeve. “…Don’t leave… I… I’m drowning… I’m drowning so don’t leave…”

Hotch pulled the younger man into an embrace, he knew it was easily a bad idea, a trigger- worse, the ribs… but he held him with a gentleness and felt Spencer start to cry.

“All I could think was… she… she used those women because she couldn’t use her dolls… she needed them but they were so far away… and, and I’m a bastard, I’m worse than anyone who did this to me- I chose you- YOU a man with a family because I was so afraid to be so alone with them there… and you were all so far away but I chose YOU… I knew you’d understand, but it wasn’t fair or right… I… I should have just died there… I shouldn’t have… what if he gone after you?! What would I have told your widow… your SON… and I was smart enough to know that but I still…”

He was closer and closer to Aaron’s chest, his words more muffled as hands snaked around him and pulled him in tighter. He found it hard to breath, his own panic worse than the physical barriers.

“Spencer, I am HAPPY you chose me, do you understand me- here, now? I am so thankful you put your trust in me. I am so thankful I had the chance for any more time with you just like I’m thankful now to have this time with you here and now. I wish I had known I had caused you pain, I’d have told you this sooner… I don’t want you to ever feel guilty about that. That was not your fault. It was your brilliance, it always was.”

His hands wiped away at the tears below Spencer’s eyes. “I always want to protect you, but I always wind up coming up short… and late…”

Spencer pulled Aaron’s lips to his, both hands locked on the sides of Aaron’s face. After several moments, he pulled back. “Not once have you ever been late, Aaron. Not once.” He let go, he pulled himself into the bathroom, his back to the tub as he walked in.

“This can’t be how it starts.” He locked eyes with Aaron’s tiled floor. “But it can be how the start knew to start.”

Fin.


End file.
